Sources adjacent to the Scottish International Rugby Team have made the View aware of a worrying development. If true, it represents a seismic shift in international sport beyond even the confines of Rugby.

Of course, the View doesn’t deal in rumour and hearsay, so we’ve conducted our own thorough investigation into the matter to drill down to the hard facts. We begin with a series of photos taken at Scottish training sessions that were provided by a mole within the team. We cannot identify this player, he only contacts us using the name Deep Clog.

Astute lip-readers will see the problem here.

Armed with these photos, we sent our intrepid reporter to the headquarters of the Lothian and Borders Police Force, to consult with one of their lip-reading experts. Once we had paid the fine for wasting police time, our photos were returned without further explanation. Immediately, it became clear, we had uncovered something big.

Unbowed in the face of this aggressive harassment by the police, we contacted the SRU Languages Unit for a statement on the matter. Sadly, they declined to make any comment other than to deny the existence of a Languages Unit. Given we had asked to speak to the Languages Unit, and were subsequently spoken to by someone, we think even the most sceptical reader will agree that something’s not right here.

Just as we were compiling this mass of evidence for publication, we received a note from Deep Clog. It was very cryptic, but we immediately understood what he was trying to tell us.

With this final development, we knew something had to be done, just publishing our findings wouldn’t be enough. To this end, we sent our intrepid reporter to Holyrood to demand answers from the First Minister. Despite repeated rebuffings by the First Minister’s staff, our intrepid reporter finally gained an audience with Mr. Salmond using a Chelsea Bun, which was skilfully procured from Greggs. The transcript of this is as follows:

La Chelsea Bulko: Cake of Babel?

The View:- First Minister, are you aware of the shocking revelations regarding Scottish rugby and language?

That was a good try by the Scarlets. Tom, thanks for that – 18,000? Just looking at the capacities of the grounds in the Rabo. It’ll be about the 5th biggest stadium in the league, although I don’t think Murrayfield should count as Edinburgh never (rarely – Heinie semi-final excepted) get anywhere near filling it.
Ticht – I know it’s down the list, but I really think Edinburgh can’t develop as a team while they are playing at Murrayfield – 5,000 in a 67,000+ capacity stadium?

Sorry folks, I was harsher on Rory Best than I meant to be – I have utmost respect for the guy. Woody is of course in a separate box, so shouldn’t be used for comparison’s sakes, but I was a big fan of Jerry, injuries aside.

A diva (/ˈdiːvə/; Italian: [ˈdiːva]) is a celebrated female singer; a woman of outstanding talent in the world of opera, and by extension in theatre, cinema and popular music. The meaning of diva is closely related to that of prima donna.

Jazz is a music that originated at the beginning of the 20th century, arguably earlier, within the African-American communities of the Southern United States. Its roots lie in the adoption by African-Americans of European harmony and form, absorbing those European elements into their existing African-based music. Its African musical basis is evident in its use of blue notes, improvisation, polyrhythms, syncopation and the swung note.[1] From its early development until the present day, jazz has also incorporated elements from popular music especially, in its early days, from American popular music.[2]

FFS – you missed the earlier programme that talked about Billie Holiday, Nina Simone, Ella Fitzgerald and Peggy Lee. I only caught bits of it between the Ulster tries – I might try and catch up with it on iPlayer.